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I'm sure their is a percent that deserved it but how many of the 32000+ each year does not. If the answer is even just one that is one to many.

If someone broke into your house and was trying to rape/kill you or a family member, stopping the attacker,even if by means of shooting them, could be seen as legit self defence.
I then hear about Starbucks asking customers not to come into their stores with legal firearms,or i see how your general public is treated when pulled over by the law on an episode of COPS,where you are guilty first proof your innocence and expected of carrying a weapon thanks to that wonderful constitution and thus treated as such. SO how many of those 32000 probably didn't deserve it at all.

So is the problem 32000 accidental deaths? 32000 self defence acts? Is it 32000 police shootings? Is it 32000 gang related shootings? Legal or illegal it appears you have a serious problem.

Help me understand how news of yet another school shooting massacre,where some kid getting teased,decides one day to get up and go around shooting 30 or 40 kids translates to the victims deserving it ?

It kind of sounds like you would prefer no prison system at all and basically a free for all where if you have a gun you can be the judge,juror and executioner for every crime you see fit. So we are clear, on what crimes do you think the offender is punishable by death,or you have the right to shoot them?

People kill people but guns make it much to easy
People have the right to self defence
People kill people less when guns are not a commodity or right
Legal or illegal you guys have a serious gun problem

Your premise falls short on one simple basic fact. People are going to have guns whether you want them to or not. It will happen. Making all guns illegal actually means that all guns are going to be illegal and those are most definitely more dangerous people.

You don't understand a quote that you made and now you want me to try and explain it to you? Sorry I don't understand it either. Your quoted information simply doesnt have enough data to be useful for anyone. How do you expect that I can justify it when it isn't useful information at all?

I heavily suspect that if the same number of people that were lisenced to drive a car were also licensed to carry a legal gun, then gun violence would just about disappear.

First off a tank in urban combat is a death trap. You disable the tracks and it plus, its passengers are sniper bait. In regards to a F22 if we are in a situation that F22's are bombing your local supermarket, we are going to be at full on war and everyone is going to have F22's. You thing there are no civilians in the US that can or will figure-out how to fly a F22?

Bomb their OWN cities to rubble?

Originally Posted by smitty3268

Urban combat is only difficult if you are trying to protect civilians or the existing infrastructure. If you are free to bomb the city into the stone age, it's really easy. Otherwise, sure, the easiest solution is to blockade it and wait until the people inside starve and have to come out.

Where I live that would mean bombing Washington DC to rubble, which would be 9-11 on steroids. They could not do this without killing their own paymasters. The Vietnamese talked of "grabbing Uncle Sam by the belt" meanign get close to neutralize air and artillery weapons. This still works today: they could bomb outlying neighborhoods but occupying rich neighborhoods by force would then provide automatic bomb shelters.

They could try to engage insurgents house by house with guided munitions, but in the US a mosquite swarm of cheap improvised drones, some with jet engines (>$3000 at one place I know!) would contest control of the skies at low altitude and stop attack helicopters entirely. Hackers and GPS spoofing would redirect some of the PGM's from their intended targets to other targets preferred by the insurgents. Hell, even in Iraq and Afghanistan US air power was not able to stop insurgents armed with small arms, IED, and suicide bombers seemingly able to reach and take out targets at will. Air power is nothing but another kind of artillery, just as suicide bombers are. Hell, it can be argued that in Iraq, with warhead yields limted by proximity to pro-US forces, both sides had near artillery parity when all weapon systems are considered together.

I've actually considered the siege issue of cutting off food and how to counter it. In progressive communities here in DC there is already emphasis on urban gardening. If war was looming surely activists in many communities would warn of food security hazards not only from a siege but also from economic collapse. The latter commonly occurs in civil wars-and in the US could cause catastrophic food shortages affecting all sides. In fact, a city under siege with urban gardens might even have the edge over troops awaiting shipments of crops that might not be harvested or might not make it over roads swarming with their enemies. This is not new, in the old days some sieges were defeated by food shortages among the beseigers and who started out with the most food stored away would likely come out on top.

Lastly, don't forget that any civil war in the US would divide the US military, guaranteeing some access to the latest high-tech war toys to both sides. If this ever happens in the US, combinging this with ugly racial and religious hate could turn it into the bloodiest civil war outside the Congo (Congo has suffered 6 MILLION dead in fighting spurred by outsiders lusting for Coltan ore). The last civil war here was bad enough, losses were comparable to 1.2 million in today's population. Please do not hope that class struggle in the US devolves into a civil war on racial, religious, and regional lines-ask anyone in Iraq what THAT can lead to!

Lastly, don't forget that any civil war in the US would divide the US military, guaranteeing some access to the latest high-tech war toys to both sides.

If the military ever was ordered to go after large masses of civilians, i have no doubt there would be rebellion in it. However, then you are talking about the military fighting the military, and arming civilians with military weaponry. That's a completely different argument than the military just going after armed civilians and arguing that those civilians need their rifles or the military would beat them. In reality, the military would crush them regardless - but the military would splinter into factions, making the entire thought exercise of civilians vs the military incorrect from the start.

I just find it hilarious the way some people actually think civilians could beat the military. Guys, we spend trillions of dollars making sure they are unbeatable. When they get beat, it's generally because they aren't willing to cross certain lines, which happens when you are prosecuting a war of choice overseas. When it is in your backyard and you are fighting for your life, things get a whole lot dirtier. A civil war would guarantee a whole lot of chaos, death, and suffering on all sides.

doubt

I seriously doubt that this gun was legally purchased. I'm convinced it was black market. Of course I didnt ask the guy where he got his gun, but from the looks of him I doubt very much that he got it through legal means.